Dakota Beacon

Friday, November 27, 2009

My favorite moment in the Climategate/Climaquiddick scandal currently roiling the "climate change" racket was Stuart Varney's interview on Fox News with the actor Ed Begley Jr, star of the 1980s medical drama "St Elsewhere" but latterly better known, as is the fashion with members of the thespian community, as an "activist". He's currently in a competition with Bill Nye ("the Science Guy") to see who can have the lowest "carbon footprint". Pistols at dawn would seem the quickest way of resolving that one, but presumably you couldn't get a reality series out of it. Anyway, Ed was relaxed about the mountain of documents recently leaked from Britain's Climate Research Unit in which the world's leading climate-change warm-mongers e-mail each other back and forth on how to "hide the decline" and other interesting matters.

Nothing to worry about, folks. "We'll go down the path and see what happens in peer-reviewed studies," said Ed airily. "Those are the key words here, Stuart. 'Peer-reviewed studies.'"

Hang on. Could you say that again more slowly so I can write it down? Not to worry. Ed said it every 12 seconds, as if it were the magic charm that could make all the bad publicity go away. He wore an open-necked shirt, and, although I don't have a 76" inch HDTV, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a talismanic peer-reviewed amulet nestling in his chest hair for additional protection. "If these scientists have done something wrong, it will be found out and their peers will determine it," insisted Ed. "Don't get your information from me, folks, or any newscaster. Get it from people with Ph D after their names. 'Peer-reviewed studies is the key words. And if it comes out in peer-reviewed studies." Got it: Pier-reviewed studies. You stand on the pier and you notice the tide seems to be coming in a little higher than it used to and you wonder if it's something to do with incandescent light bulbs killing the polar bears? Is that how it works?

No, no, peer-reviewed studies. "Peer-reviewed studies. Go to Science magazine, folks. Go to Nature," babbled Ed. "Read peer-reviewed studies. That's all you need to do. Don't get it from you or me." Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you!

The trouble with outsourcing your marbles to the peer-reviewed set is that, if you take away one single thing from the leaked documents, it's that the global warm-mongers have wholly corrupted the "peer-review" process. When it comes to promoting the impending ecopalypse, the Climate Research Unit is the nerve-center of the operation. The "science" of the CRU dominates the "science" behind the UN IPCC, which dominates the "science" behind the Congressional cap-&-trade boondoggle, the upcoming Copenhagen shakindownen of the developed world, and the now routine phenomenon of leaders of advanced, prosperous societies talking like gibbering madmen escaped from the padded cell, whether it's President Obama promising to end the rise of the oceans or the Prince of Wales saying we only have 96 months left to save the planet. But don't worry, it's all "peer-reviewed".

Here's what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by "peer review". When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann "consensus", Jones demanded that the journal "rid itself of this troublesome editor", and Mann advised that "we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers."

So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the "consensus" reservation, Dr Tom Wigley ("one of the world's foremost experts on climate change") suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to "get him ousted". When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr Jones assured Dr Mann, "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up "peer review" as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in The Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: "How To Forge A Consensus." Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That's "peer review", climate-style. The more their echo chamber shriveled, the more Mann and Jones insisted that they and only they represent the "peer-reviewed" "consensus". And gullible types like Ed Begley Jr and Andrew Revkin of The New York Times fell for it hook, line and tree-ring.

The e-mails of "Andy" (as his CRU chums fondly know him) are especially pitiful. Confronted by serious questions from Stephen McIntyre, the dogged Ontario retiree whose "Climate Audit" website exposed the fraud of Dr Mann's global-warming "hockey stick" graph), "Andy" writes to Dr Mann to say not to worry, he's going to "cover" the story from a more oblique angle:

"I'm going to blog on this as it relates to the value of the peer review process and not on the merits of the mcintyre et al attacks." peer review, for all its imperfections, is where the herky-jerky process of knowledge building happens, would you agree?"

And, amazingly, Dr Mann does!

"Re, your point at the end--you've taken the words out of my mouth."

And that's what Andrew Revkin did, week in, week out: He took the words out of Michael Mann's mouth and served them up to impressionable readers of The New York Times and opportunist politicians around the world champing at the bit to inaugurate a vast global regulatory body to confiscate trillions of dollars of your hard-earned wealth in the cause of "saving the planet" from an imaginary crisis concocted by a few dozen thuggish ideologues. If you fall for this after the revelations of the last week, you're as big a dupe as Begley or Revkin.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" wondered Juvenal: Who watches the watchmen? But the beauty of the climate-change tree-ring circus is that you never need to ask "Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?" Mann peer-reviewed Jones, and Jones peer-reviewed Mann, and anyone who questioned their theories got exiled to the unwarmed wastes of Siberia. The "consensus" warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as "peer-reviewed" if it's published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr and "Andy" Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning "Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled."

Looking forward to Copenhagen, Herman Van Rumpoy, the new President of the European Union and an eager proponent of the ecopalypse, says 2009 is "the first year of global governance". Global government, huh? I wonder whereyou go to vote them out of office. Hey, but don't worry, it'll all be "peer-reviewed".

My guess is that the AGW crowd was hoping they’d get all this bogus Cap and Trade scams up and running. Then when the world’s temps starting to stabilize, they’d claimed they saved the world from global warming.

Looks like they’ve run out of time and the game is up. But don’t expect them to go quietly… they were going to make a lot of money with this scam!

So far the back-and-forth of this has been in certain media outlets and on blogs. The NY Times, as in “... we publish classified Pentagon Papers for the good of the cause,” and the Washington Post elect not to report on this because the e-mails were “stolen” and they certainly do not want to publish anything “stolen,” thank you very much. But, the serious examinations of this and the following reprecussions will come about when university scientific misconduct committees and federal funding agencies start to have a look/see. I hope that the system is not so corrupt that an entirely objective investigation will be swept under the rug, and just sanctions not levied. In my opinion, if all of this holds true then heads should roll and a whole lot of people terminated.

It’s hard to keep up with syndicated columnists, but the Mark Steyn piece you just ran that mentions my reporting on climate was a gross distortion of reality (particularly where it asserts that “week after week” I somehow acted as an apologist for the climate scientist Michael Mann.

My focus through more than two decades of reporting on climate change has always been on the evolving science, whichever way it trends.

One example of an article putting Dr. Mann on the defensive:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/science/earth/05clim.html

All week on my blog, Dot Earth, I’ve been in an open-ended, and open-minded, exploration of “climategate,” with more to come.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

The perpetrators and proponents of Global warming are foaming at the mouth in their rabid denial that their scam, fraud, LIE has been exposed. Ed “the idiot” Begley Jr. would have us believe the disgraced pseudo scientists rather than our OWN lying eyes and ears. If these con-artists expect me to believe them, they are dumber than they thought I was. Who doesn’t believe that?

The source codes have been released and are in the hands of reputable experts. Already, major deliberate fraud has been pinpointed, and after only scratching the surface. I wouldn’t count much on government investigations, or captive faculty committees, but I do know that real scientists despise phoneys like Jones and Mann et al. and some have been harmed by the thuggery at East Anglia.

I agree with Almost everything Mr. Steyn says. But one thing - are you sure it’s ‘champing at the bit’? Because whenever I see a horse do it, it looks like he’s chomping. To be fair though, I don’t know what a horse would look like if he was champing.

Actually both “champing at the bit” and “chomping at the bit” are correct, though chomping is the more common usage.
Nice try Mr. Revkin, but even your most ardent supporters would have to agree that your criticism of the climate change/global warming crowd has been tepid at best. Furthermore you have been late to the game in addressing that which, at the very least, has been poor research work. I dare say you would have excoriated the opposing side for similar tactics. Time to man up, Andrew, as Mr. Monbiot has. It only hurts briefly, and allows you to salvage what you have left of a reputation.

I wouldn’t count much on government investigations, or captive faculty committees, but I do know that real scientists despise phonys like Jones and Mann et al. and some have been harmed by the thuggery at East Anglia.

The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled.”

The New York Times and opportunist politicians around the world champing at the bit to inaugurate a vast global regulatory body to confiscate trillions of dollars of your hard-earned wealth in the cause of “saving the planet” from an imaginary crisis concocted by a few dozen thuggish ideologues. If you fall for this after the revelations of the last week, you’re as big a dupe as Begley or Revkin.

Most of the people living in North Dakota have been scammed at some time in their lifes by one or more con artists playing on their genuine “straight shooter” dispositions (believing nothing they read and only half of what they see). So the only element that buys into left wing enviro-kooks’ Global Cooling/Warming/Climate Change/etc. and the carbon credit scam that it has spawned are those elderly that can’t remember previous scams in their lives.

I’ll tell you who’s in serious denial…RINOs in the Republican party! They’d better wake up and smell the coffee! It’s now too late for any lefties to be even considered for participation in rational discussion.

The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies.

I don’t trust this kind of “peer-reviewed” studies, because you need to have a group of well-qualified and, what is even more important, trusted experts. Otherwise all of these scientific climate researches look more like a method to grab money of the taxpayers.

Great article on the climate issues that some say we are having. I agree with the consensus that our world has experienced similar issues in the past. It has to do with our planet, not sure the carbon emissions we are putting in our atmosphere. I’m surprised with how Phil Jones reacted!

My favorite moment in the Climategate/Climaquiddick scandal currently roiling the “climate change” racket was Stuart Varney’s interview on Fox News with the actor Ed Begley Jr, star of the 1980s medical drama “St Elsewhere” but latterly better known, as is the fashion with members of the thespian community, as an “activist”. He’s currently in a competition with Bill Nye (“the Science Guy”) to see who can have the lowest “carbon footprint”.